What does “entrepreneurship” mean to you? How has your understanding of it evolved over time?
Mandy Bynum: I will never forget a conversation I had with my boss (amazing woman, Kristi Friedrichs) as I was resigning from my last corporate role to work for a 4-person startup while I launched my own consulting business.

She asked, “Would you ever be an entrepreneur?”

My response was “Oh, absolutely not.”

The label of entrepreneur didn’t actually even click for me until three years into running my own company, while working W2 roles, when I realized that I was indeed an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is the daily choice to make a career out of using your intuition, letting your creativity be your guide, and putting yourself out there to people who may or may not be interested in what you have to offer, but having belief and faith in one’s self that the right people will find you and want to work with you, or be a part of what you’re building.

Tell us about your first experience with entrepreneurship. What sparked your interest in building something of your own?
MB: I was working in these corporate positions, building sales teams and later building a Belonging and Inclusion practice under HR.  What I was creating was already a version of entrepreneurship; I was building everything, the hiring packets, the frameworks for how we would compensate our account executives, traveling around the world to our different offices to connect with global leaders to get buy-in for my initiative or project.

Given how little appreciation or recognition I received for my work (mostly older white men), I didn’t understand how indispensable I was to the sales organization until I wanted to transition to the HR team, and they “advised” me over and over about how bad of an idea it was, how I was taking a pay cut to move to the cost center side of the business.

In was in these conversations I realized that the organizations I was building within these corporations are my own, which was the same as entrepreneurship. I realized at that moment that my ability to enter any company and create, manage, and sustain an entire operating team (without even needing to know much about the product) were the same skills I’d need to start my own company with a product/offering I actually cared about.

Even then, it was another two years before I built up the courage to quit my job.

What is the origin story of your company? What motivated you to start, and how did those early days shape your journey
MB: A year after leaving my corporate job to start my own consulting business, I took on CEO positions for two consecutive non-profit organizations. I also started my venture capital investing journey by investing in two venture capital funds founded and run by women.

At this point, I had built significant networks of people in the corporate tech, non-profit + philanthropy, and asset management (not only venture capital).

It got to a point where I was getting daily phone calls from people asking if I could connect them to someone in xyz space, how they could invest in venture capital, or if they should even consider taking on venture capital funding.

I was constantly connecting people across industries who would otherwise have no way of even knowing about or meeting each other.

Along the way, I began noticing just how much people DIDN’T KNOW about all the ways they could be working with, investing in, and partnering with people from other verticals and industries to make the change they really wanted to see (however closely tied it was to their nine-five job).

People in high-paying tech jobs with amazing experience didn’t know they were even eligible to invest in venture capital funds or startups, nor did they have any idea of the possibilities for their own careers when they became active investors.

On the other side, founders and even VC fund managers (especially women, and Black and Brown people) really wanted more diverse cap tables. They were not interested, although due to the circumstances, help to investors who had never run companies of their own. They were happy to take smaller checks to from people with really great experience working at and building successful companies.

Even non-profit leaders were having trouble fundraising because they were either only applying for grants or they just didn’t know how to break into larger corporate or institutional giving.

I knew there had to be a way to connect these dots at scale. To better unlock information and access to knowledge that is way too siloed. It seemed ridiculous to me that all of these brilliant Black and Brown people, each of whom had such great networks and access to resources were not able to access each other.  

Often, even when I did make these connections, I thought would be an obvious match made in heaven, there would still be unintentional gatekeeping.  I noticed a lack of trust among people within the same cultural communities. This to me was clearly a result our conditioning within a hierarchical society, and a way for a small minority of power hoarding people could keep us separated, and therefore without power.

I knew this endeavor was about more than simply connecting people within my community. We had to engage in a collective practice of deconditioning ourselves from the lies that we’ve been told about ourselves to break down fences and gates behind which there was often only one of us at a time.

Sanctum was created to be more than just an online community. It needed to create space, place, and community where, through collaboration, trust, and collective care, we could find better, more values-aligned ways of building wealth together, rather than remaining in parallel lanes, competing for the same small pools of “allocated” post-George Floyd guilt capital

What I initially believed would be a simple online community full of resources and opportunities to collaborate, what has happened looks much more like a movement towards collective care, collaboration, and lets-get-down-to-business-and-make-this-money, or buy this land, or put together this event. People I never imagined have gravitated towards the movement we’re building with Sanctum has been overwhelming.

What do you wish you had known when you started? If you could go back, what would you do differently?
MB: Sanctum is the third nonprofit organization I’ve worked for, but the first one I launched myself. Because I knew how to launch a nonprofit mechanically and wanted to get it right from the I was focusing on the minutiae to avoid launching the community. My fear of people not responding well to the vision and mission of the nonprofit, what seemed a “radical” form of community building, was scary.

I built in isolation for so long (well, me and the greats) with our greatest thinkers. It was me, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, James Baldwin, James A. Sneed, Malcolm X, Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. Du Bois an others for the greater part of a year. I stopped all travel and was instead having really long, deep, and meaningful conversations with my community of world builders.

While I definitely needed that time to root down into my vision without the distraction and buzz of figuring out which of the weekly set of networking events I had otherwise built my career around, if I could go back, I would’ve come out of isolation sooner by bringing people together in community.

Even though any event I did create was wildly successful, and attendees were always asking when the next one would be, like many of us, I was still scared to keep going.

Has there been a pivotal moment or a game-changing decision that defined your growth as an entrepreneur?
MB: The day I decided to shift my focus to putting myself out there (no more fear of bringing people together regularly) to show my audience what Sanctum is, whether through writing, gatherings, and other content, everything changed. Before that, I was holding virtual “information sessions” and hoping the attendees, some who knew my work and others who didn’t, would be chomping at the bit to become members after one conversation.

This was the result of two important things finally clicking for me. First: If I could focus on just doing what I love (writing, sharing insights, bringing people together), the simple joy and love for creating those outputs and spaces would attract the right people. Two: for anyone who didn’t get what we were trying to do or didn’t like it, they were not the people we wanted in Sanctum’s community, anyway.

What is the biggest milestone you hope to achieve in the next three months, and why is it important to you and your business? How are you planning to tackle it?
MB: Our most significant milestone is reaching Sanctum’s $1M fundraising goal. Resourcing a community like ours requires real investment — to keep our events, programs, and gatherings accessible, we will rely heavily on a mix of values-aligned sponsors, partnerships, donations, and grants.

Since officially launching the only community platform on September 15, 2025, our community has grown rapidly — reaching over 500 subscribers in the first 30 days alone! This next phase is about building on that momentum to secure the funding that will sustain our community’s growth and allow us to continue creating spaces where wealth, wellness, and power are shared resources.

To reach this milestone, I’m working with my community to practice asking for specific support (still very much a practice for me as well).

We’re working to be connected to funders and foundations who are mission and values aligned. I’m getting the Sanctum name out there by contributing my time and expertise to bring the Sanctum experience to conferences via workshops and facilitations where potential funders and community members are convening.

Share your boldest dream for your business and the world. What’s your plan to make it a reality?
MB: The ten-year vision for Sanctum is to be a trade organization that provides resources, knowledge and community that:

• Holds space for people to practice community and collaboration as a form of wealth building.
• Creates regular opportunities for Sanctum members to travel to other diasporas throughout the world to better understand opportunities we have to build wealth, not just here in the US, but all over the world.
• Provides grants and funding to others who are doing the work of bringing people together to create opportunities for collaboration and wealth creation.
• Has an extensive library of content full of the stories, knowledge, and opportunities that inspires our members and provide actionable insights to activate their own power. 

What is your entrepreneurial superpower? How has it helped you overcome challenges or seize opportunities?
MB: My entrepreneurial superpower (although it doesn’t feel like this every day) stems from my ability to see problems and their solutions from a different and broader perspective than most.

For example, I’ve worked with foundations who wanted to create an impact investment strategy, but had no real intention of changing their own beliefs about what “impact investing” really is, where it currently falls short, and the possibilities of what true impact can look like (instead of small bits of money to projects and initiatives that in reality need significantly more capital and significantly less oversight from their donors).

Having worked in several different spaces and business functions, I understand that regardless of the problem, the solution WILL NOT be successful unless the people who sit at the source of that problem are willing to change.

Working through this over and over again with different organizations had taught me how much I ALSO have to be willing to change (mostly listen) in order meet people where they are.

Keeping the willingness to change and not have to be in full control has not only helped me overcome significant obstacles (ie: “how can I communicate this differently?” instead of “why are they not getting it?”), but allowed me to engage in projects and initiatives that I never imagined I would be a part of, and put me in rooms with people who have tremendous power to change the underlying systems of our society.

What personal values drive you as an entrepreneur?
MB: Every day, when I want to quit, or go “get a real job”, I think of my ancestors. They didn’t have the same opportunity as me to chase their dreams, or the access, or the freedom. How they lived their lives and what they endured was for me to be able to do what I do now.

I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility to keep going, to see this vision all the way through as a way of letting those who came before me that their work was not in vain.

How have those values influenced your company’s culture and mission? Can you share an example?
MB: This responsibility to my ancestors manifests in a need to pay people fairly for their work. I know full well that my work has been undervalued and undercompensated for, but I refuse to perpetuate that unfair harm, particularly onto other Black women. I have definitely made mistakes along the way by being too generous for work that wasn’t at par, or did not do my part in setting the right expectations.

Then, of course, Sanctum is an organization for gate breakers.  During a recent collaboration for an event we facilitated, we talked about money upfront, which turned the conversation from something that could have been uncomfortable to one of true co-conspiratorship.

What’s it like working alone or with a team? How do you approach building strong partnerships?
MB: Working alone is really difficult. Having to both create, work on, and work for the business all at the same time is not ideal or an effective use of time.

From applying for grants, designing your website and automated workflows, building your own CRM, paying all the bills, keeping up with your email, booking your own flights. It’s exhausting.

However, in the beginning for many founders (including myself), without funding, this is what it may look like for some time.

Through the last 5 years as a solo/entrepreneur, I’ve relied heavily on collaborations with other consultants and small organizations to share the load of administrative work so that we can focus more on the project itself.

Building strong partnerships that can sustain the ups and downs of a business takes tremendous intention and care, which I don’t take lightly.

When it comes to building my own team,  I work to be really clear with anyone I hire around expectations of time frame. I try to keep our contracts short term to leave room for what we can’t predict and as a forcing function to have open conversations about how the partnership is going, and what we should alter/iterate for the next phase.

What role has mentorship played in your journey—whether as a mentor or a mentee? Share a story that highlights its impact.
MB: I published an entire piece on this very topic in the Sanctum Dispatch. My mentors and mentees have been the backbone to my business. In the first six months of my consulting practice, I was introduced to Francine Parham who, on our first call, gave me over an hour of her time, and sent me her contract templates to use for creating my own advisory proposals.

ChatGPT was not available in 2020, and without resources like this from people like Francine who would always say “we’re all in this together, I’m going to continue to help you because I know you will do the same for others”, I would not have the business acumen I have today.

I have since passed along my own scope of work templates, budget outlines, deck templates, and anything I have that could potentially help another entrepreneur. We can be so isolated sometimes that its easy to forget how many resources each of us have to share.

What’s one daily ritual or practice that keeps you grounded and focused?
MB: The first thing I do before anything else in the morning (other than pour a cup of coffee), is take 20-40 minutes to journal. Putting the pen to paper, and just letting my thoughts flow onto the page has been a therapy over the years that I didn’t initially know I needed.

I published a piece in 2024 about how this practice changed my entire outlook on my expression as an entrepreneur.

How do you manage the demands of entrepreneurship while maintaining your well-being? What strategies work best for you?
MB: Maintaining our well-being starts with knowing what well-being is FOR US, not what everyone else says it is.

For me, I have to both move my body and find complete stillness at some point every day. If I don’t, I will feel stressed, resentful, and depressed.

I was introduced to yoga after spending my entire life prior as a competitive athlete. What was initially a fun new challenge became an entire life practice and way of making sense of everything.

The literal asana practice was just me lengthening and stretching my spine to allow for better blood flow to all the parts of our body that need fresh oxygen. With the mind being part of this flow, the clarity I received is like nothing I experienced before finding this practice. I discover new things about myself every time I come to the mat, whether at home by myself or in a studio with 50 other bodies.

Practicing yoga has been so critical to my career that I took my first teacher training in 2015 to deepen my own journey, and have been practicing as a teacher ever since.

No matter how busy I am, how much I have to travel for work, I do my best to maintain my teaching and practice schedule in order to maintain my center of gravity.

What kind of entrepreneur do you aspire to be? How do you want to be remembered in your industry or community?
MB: I want to be remembered as a truth teller, connector, and knowledge sharer.

While I do sometimes feel like my willingness to center and prioritize the whole is either not taken as real, or is not something that’s possible to do because of the hyper-individualistic and capitalist society we live in.

I firmly believe (and I know I’m not the only one) that doing right thing for those closest to the problem you’re trying to solve is the way to solve the problems of the entire community and society. I know that if I continue to practice that truth, I will continue to find myself in spaces with others who believe the same thing, and together we can have major impact on how we treat one another, and how we build wealth together.

How does your work contribute to solving larger societal challenges or helping others?
MB: I set out to build Sanctum to show how important it is to hold space for Black, Brown, and Indigenous professionals to step outside of their day-to-day to connect and discover opportunities to collaborate, and to show how these types of gatherings have not only been the way we’ve survived all this time, but is also our only path forward, most especially with the world we are currently faced with.

In order to do this effectively, however, we have to disarm one another. It’s easy for me, now having been out of a full-time corporate role for over five yeas to say that collaboration across sectors is key. However, for those who have been working a nine-to-five for twenty or thirty years, the idea of investing in, collaborating with, or engaging with our community on this level, or building wealth outside of the “traditional” methods (buy a house, keep the house), can be terrifying.

We are conditioned to be super loyal to these corporations (companies are NOT PEOPLE, btw), that truly don’t care about us. Then, when we either finally decide to leave or are pushed out, we so often don’t even remember how to build connections or impactful, wealth-building relationships with our own people anymore.

Sanctum, among other things, is working to activate this muscle for leaders who have an unprecedented level of access to capital and resources, and show the ways in which we can successfully circulate that capital and resources WITHIN OUR OWN COMMUNITY while still building tremendous levels of wealth.

What are some of the biggest barriers you’ve faced as an entrepreneur? How have you overcome them—or how are you working to do so?MB: For me, being a “busy” kid and busy adult, I had to learn the difference between productivity (prioritized and focused), and avoidance-type busy (answering/checking emails when important administrative work needs finishing).

Once I figured out all the tasks I do not like doing, I worked to hire someone who could do those for me so that I had no excuse but to work on the things that I’m best at, and had someone holding me accountable to not spend time doing things that someone else can do.

How do you cultivate and maintain relationships that help you as an entrepreneur, whether for funding, mentorship, or collaboration?
MB: I have a whole workshop on this, as well as a few newsletters within The Sanctum Dispatch that talk exactly about maintaining relationships, and the importance of know how to network and connect with people who you know will be long-term partners.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to aspiring entrepreneurs about building and leading teams?
MB: Having interviewed and hired literally hundreds of people throughout my corporate career, I can see how poorly overall hiring practices can be. From job descriptions that are unclear to poor expectations, talent acquisition in general, still has work to do.

For hiring, I always tell people two things:
1. When it comes to hiring people, we have to first be first clear for ourselves what the specific skillsets we need over the type of person. The more we can delineate the skill, tasks, and expertise from the “type of person”, the more clear we can be when hiring.

Otherwise, our bias will always take over and we’ll look for people who are like us and someone we’ll want to be friends with.

2. NO ONE will care more about the success of your company than you. Trying to find someone as passionate about your vision are you are is something we must stop looking for. If they were as eager as you, they would’ve created it themselves, right?

When we’re clear on this, you can be clear on the tasks, the skillsets, and the deliverables that you need to role for, and less around the personal/professional working relationship. Of course, we’re human and want to work with people we like. But when we can prioritize the work that needs to be done, you will find the best person for that job, and the relationship will fall into place.

Do you have a favorite quote or mantra that keeps you motivated on tough days?
MB: So many, but one that has been coming up for me recently is “If I lose myself, I lose it all.” This is my reminder to myself that when I’m not true to myself, my needs, and my dreams, I can’t show up as my best for others.

If someone wrote a book about your entrepreneurial journey, what would the title be?
MB: At the Intersection